[Excerpted from UFO Universe, the September 1988 issue, is this article on
Ronald Reagan's reputed UFO encounter, and how that encounter may serve to
explain his continued interest in UFOlogy and EBEs.]

THE SHOCKING TRUTH
Ronald Reagan's Obsession With An Alien Invasion
By A. Hovni

Supermarket tabloids, that strange breed of sensationalistic American
journalism, have been talking for most of the decade about Ronald Reagan's
fascination with things like astrology and space aliens. Little attention was
paid to the matter ... after all, the stuff was printed in the tabloids and
nobody sane is supposed to believe in them. Yet truth is becoming stranger than
fiction in the case of Ronald Wilson Reagan and some of his more curious
remarks.

For starters, he has become the first President of the United States to talk
about he possibility of an alien invasion from outer space, and he has done so
not once or twice but in three speeches. Reagan is also the only President to my
knowledge, who admitted -- in a 1984 Presidential debate against Walter Mondale
-- [to] having "philosophical discussions" about Armageddon in the
White House with some rather well known fundamentalist preachers.

And then there was the explosion about astrology in the White House,
triggered by Don Regan's disclosures that Nancy had often consulted astrologers
to arrange for appointments with the President. Everyone knows the details by
now, yet we asked Marcello Galluppi, a well-known astrologer and host of a
psychic radio and TV talk show in Detroit, to give us another view. "It is
very clear to me that the politicians in Washington have their psychics and
astrologers," said Marcello, "at least some of them do."
Furthermore, continued Marcello, there is evidence that the Reagans have used
astrology for a long time if we consider that "he was sworn in at midnight
as Governor of California, based on astrology."

The media was having a field day with horoscopes at the White House when
Reagan talked about the possibility of Earth uniting against a threat by "a
power from outer space." Although the idea wasn't new for the President, as
we shall soon see, this time everybody paid attention. More as a joke than a
serious thought, however. The AP story on the speech, for example, had the
headline, "Reagan follows astrological flap with comment on space
invaders."

There might be a deeper reason for Reagan's apparent interest in the idea of
an alien threat. There is an unconfirmed story that before he became Governor of
California, Ron and Nancy had a UFO sighting on a highway near Hollywood. The
story was broadcast last February on Steve Allen's radio show over WNEW-AM in
New York. The comedian and host commented that a very well known personality in
the entertainment industry had confided to him that many years ago, Ron and
Nancy were expected to a casual dinner with friends in Hollywood. Except for the
Reagan's, all the guests had arrived. Ron and Nancy showed up quite upset half an
hour later, saying that they had just seen a UFO coming down the coast. No
further details were released by Steve Allen.

The President first disclosed his recurrent thoughts about "an alien
threat" during a December 4, 1985, speech at the Fallston High School in
Maryland, where he spoke about his first summit with General Secretary Gorbachev
in Geneva. According to a White House transcript, Reagan remarked that during
his 5-hour private discussions with Gorbachev, he told [Gorbachev] to think,
"how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if
suddenly there was a threat to this world from some other species from another
planet outside in the universe. We'd forget all the little local differences
that we have between our countries ..."

Except for one headline or two, people didn't pay much attention. Not then
and not later, when Gorbachev himself confirmed the conversation in Geneva
during an important speech on February 17, 1987, in the Grand Kremlin Palace in
Moscow, to the Central Committee of the USSR's Communist Party. Not a High
School in Maryland, precisely! There, buried on page 7A of the 'Soviet Life
Supplement,' was the following statement:

"At our meeting in Geneva, the U.S. President said that if the earth
faced an invasion by extraterrestrials, the United States and the Soviet Union
would join forces to repel such an invasion. I shall not dispute the hypothesis,
though I think it's early yet to worry about such an intrusion..."

Notice that Gorbachev doesn't say this is an incredible proposition, he just
says that it's too early to worry about it.

If Gorbachev elevated the theme from a high school to the Kremlin [palace],
Reagan upped the stakes again by including the "alien threat" [again],
not in a domestic speech but to a full session of the General Assembly of the
United Nations. Towards the end of his speech to the Forty-second Session on
September 21, 1987, the President said that, "in our obsession with
antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of
humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize
this common bond.

"I occasionally think," continued Reagan, "how quickly our
differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from
outside this world. And yet, I ask" -- here comes the clincher -- "is
not an alien force ALREADY among us?" The President now tries to retreat
from the last bold statement by posing a second question: "What could be
more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat
of war?" Unlike the off-the-cuff remarks to the Fallston High School, we
must assume that the President's speech to the General Assembly was written very
carefully and likewise, it merits close examination.

Ronald Reagan has told us that he thinks often about this issue, yet nobody
seems to be paying attention. When the President mentioned last May 4 in Chicago
for the third time the possibility of a threat by "a power from another
planet," the media quickly dubbed it the "space invaders" speech,
relegating it to a sidebar in the astrology flap. The ET remark was made in the
Q&A period following a speech to the National Strategy Forum in Chicago's
Palmer House Hotel, where he adopted a more conciliatory tone towards the Soviet
Union.

Significantly, Reagan's remark was made during his response to the question,
"What do you consider to be the most important need in international
relations?"

"I've often wondered," the President told us once again, "what
if all of us in the world discovered that we were threatened by an outer -- a
power from outer space, from another planet." And then he emphasized his
theme that this would erase all the differences, and that the "citizens of
the world" would "come together to fight that particular
threat..."

There is a fourth, unofficial, similar statement from Ronald Reagan about
this particular subject. It was reported in the New Republic by senior editor
Fred Barnes. The article described a luncheon in the White House between the
President and Eduard Shevardnatze, during the Foreign Minister's visit to
Washington to sign the INF Treaty on September 15, 1987. "Near the end of
his lunch with Shevardnadze," wrote Barnes, "Reagan wondered aloud
what would happen if the world faced an 'alien threat' from outer space. 'Don't
you think the United States and the Soviet Union would be together?' he asked.
Shevardnadze said yes, absolutely. "And we wouldn't need our defense
ministers to meet,' he added."

The fact that there are so many references in important speeches,
off-the-cuff remarks, and just plain conversations, means that -- for whatever
reason or knowledge about deep UFO secrets that he may have as President --
Ronald Reagan does think often about the possibility of an alien invasion, and
how this event could become a catalyst for world unity. Talking about these UFO
secrets, there is also an unconfirmed story of a special story of a special
screening in the White House of the movie "ET" at few years ago, with
director Steven Spielberg and a few selected guests. Right after the movie,
Reagan supposedly turned to Spielberg and whispered something to the effect,
"There are only a handful of people who know the truth about this."

Indeed, more than one UFOlogist has even suggested that the real target
behind "Star Wars" -- another of Reagan's cosmic obsessions -- is the
projected ET invasion and not the Russians. Others talk of wild
"deals" between the U.S. Government and race of gray dwarfs, better
known for the appetite for abducting humans ... Stop! We're entering the
forbidden terrain of tabloid revelations, like the SUN's screaming headline that
"Reagan will end his presidency by adding several planets as states."
Just think about it.